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Whatever you do, Don't lose your muchness

Keeping with the theme of stories...
I love this scene from the new Alice in Wonderland and I've been borrowing the concept quite frequently lately. If you think you used to be much more, you were muchier. and you must get it back. Your muchness lives somewhere inside. If something inside you is missing, you have lost your muchness. Whatever you do, don't lose your muchness.

You have to try. You have to care.

"Everyone knew that whoever let the sadness overtake him would sink into the swamp."




For my Spring body of work, I'm thinking a lot about fables and stories. A few nights ago I re-watched "The Neverending Story", and again loved this scene in the swamp. I love the simple messages of "children's stories". Here: fight against the sadness or you will sink into it and die. This very adult idea, illustrated with a horse and a boy in the mud, becomes a message for anyone. I love how he says so simply: "You have to try. You have to care. For me, I'm you're friend. I love you."
Well put Atreyu.

Today in my studio

A workspace cluttered with open books in my studio usually means something is happening.

I am reading "All the King's Men"

Well, actually I'm listening to the audiobook in the studio as I stitch and paint.
I'm very interested in the idea of being read to, lately. The comfort of having "someone" read you a story, just like bedtime as a child. There is something soothing about the sound of someone's voice humming and stopping and starting, the rising and falling action, the details that you begin to imagine in your head. The way you tune in and out, half-listening until something sticks out hard and fast above the rest of the hum and inflection.

there are so many good moments in this book so far. so many little genius insights and descriptions to love for their truth.
but
Tonight this quote sticks out above the rest:

"If something takes too long, something happens to you. You become all and only the thing you want and nothing else, for you have paid too much for it, too much in wanting and too much in waiting and too much in getting."
— Robert Penn Warren

Angel Bunny

My dear friend/crafter/blogger Rosetung has made this adorable little angel bunny. I'm entirely humbled. Read her description:

"Make friends with BecBec the AngelBunny...

one of a kind bunny inspired by my dear friend rebecca rebouche...

this is sort of a guardian angel...
to watch over you, to give you support, comfort and love in a most genuine, gentle, brave and strong hearted way, just like rebecca does for me. BecBec will help alleviate your suffering as she cries a sweet, compassionate heart-shaped tear...
i have rebecca in my life, so now you can have her, in a way, in your life, too.

BecBec the AngelBunny is not fit for rambunctious child's play (i.e. this is not a children's toy, rather, more of a decorative art doll to bless your space.)
she is made of beautiful natural fibers: wool, alpaca, cotton, silk, feathers, poly filling.
8" tall, 4" wide. can stand on her own without crutch. easily topples over though, because she is very light. ears are somewhat posable. moving them slightly is one way to get her to balance on her own. wings are very delicate gauzy cotton. nose is silk... main white fiber is 50/50 alpaca-wool..."

Aw gee.
But isn't Rosetung herself rather amazing?
See more pictures of BecBec the angel bunny here on her etsy shop.
Read her blog for inspiration and peeks inside her brooklyn studio, where I recently had tea when I was up there for the Anthropologie Show in NYC.

Trading Mardi Gras for the Beach this year

Next Show for me is the Gasparilla Festival of the Arts in downtown Tampa, FL for which I am delighted to be the featured Poster Artist! (see above)

March 5-6, 2011
Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park (by the Museum)
Tampa, FL

While most of my fellow New Orleanians will be costuming and reveling, my hero-mom and I will be loading my mini-van with artwork and driving to Tampa, FL for this festival which takes place the first weekend in March! Mardi Gras is uncharacteristically late this year, and as such, will likely be one of the most beautiful, so it is bittersweet to miss it. However, as a New Orleanian, I think it good policy to miss Mardi Gras every few years. Absence makes the heart... you know... and makes you more excited to take part in the festivities next year. This year for me, it will be beach and sunshine and gypsy-style art festival, funnel cakes and all. I'll be staying with my fabulously talented and adorable college roommate Megan Bryant who lives in Tampa when she's not globe-trotting and touring Africa for her work with luxury-tour group Cox and Kings.
When you have to miss Mardi Gras to be the featured poster artist at a major art festival on the beach in the Spring, that's what I call good problems.
If you're in Tampa, I hope you will come say hello and see the 25+ new original paintings I'll be showing. If you are in New Orleans, have enough fun for me and you both! and I'll see you all at Jazz Fest! (2nd wknd) ;)

See, winter wasn't so bad now was it?
We're nearly in the clear.

From the rue,
Rebecca

Anthropologie brings Big Easy Artists to Big Apple

Beyond The Quarter from Anthropologie on Vimeo.

For more photos of the exhibit, access Anthropologie's Flickr page here.